New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone previously vowed he’d work to avoid future ejections and thus far has been a man of his word.
“I’m not getting kicked out for a while. I haven’t been kicked out for a while,” Boone said during an appearance on “The Bret Boone Podcast” hosted by Aaron’s older brother, per Ryan Gilbert of Audacy. “I had one rough week, other than that I’ve only been kicked out once.”
Aaron Boone was referencing how he earned three ejections between May 15 and a 3-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on May 25. On May 26, MLB handed Boone a one-game suspension and an undisclosed fine for the skipper’s “recent conduct toward Major League Umpires.”
His first ejection of the campaign occurred in April.
According to Baseball Reference, Boone leads the American League for manager ejections this season with four. He led all of MLB with nine ejections last season.
“There are certain things that I really am passionate and fight for,” Boone continued. “We have always preached and are on our players about controlling the strike zone.”
He added that he is willing to go to war for his players because of what they deal with during at-bats.
“It takes a lot of nerve to be able to sit up there and take a 3-2 pitch an inch-and-a-half off the plate, and if you do it and you do it well, I’m going to fight for that,” Boone explained. “Sometimes it gets a little escalated.”
Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner noted in May he loved how Boone’s players “want to play for him and they want to win for him.”
On Wednesday, Steinbrenner said that “nobody is on the hot seat right now” even as the Yankees entered Thursday trailing the first-place Tampa Bay Rays by nine-and-a-half games in the AL East standings.
Boone can huff and puff to fire players up all he wants, but the fact remains that fans will call for his job this fall if the high-priced Yankees either back into a wild-card playoff berth or miss the postseason entirely.